Mommy?
My hands ground against the floor as I stared at it while it shifted in and out of focus. I tried to concentrate on anything that would pull me out of this quickly descending spiral, but nothing was working.
I needed to get out of there before I did something stupid.
“Are you okay, Wyn?” The humor was gone from Joclyn’s voice.
I flinched, a fear I couldn’t quite place taking over.
“Are you crying?”
Was I crying? I couldn’t focus on anything beyond her voice, beyond the memories.
Mommy! Save me!
“No!” I snapped, uncertain if it was to Rosy or Jos.
“You better not be messin’ with me … I’m not going to fall for it, Wyn.” She was worried; I could tell. However, it didn’t stop the way my magic had begun to bubble, the way the fear was ripping through me in painful waves of heaviness and heat. “Wyn?”
Mommy? She was crying, too. Please.
I needed to go.
I didn’t care how; I needed to go.
Fingers digging into the stone, back arched, breathing ragged in my ears, I felt my magic grow, felt the heat of it, felt the desperation taking over. A small voice in the back of my head screamed at me that the magic was too strong. If only it was louder … if only I cared…
In a burst of fire, my magic spread over the floor so fast I wasn’t sure Joclyn could avoid it even if she was paying close attention. I felt the stones. I felt the raw power of the fire magic move into them, heating them as the floor shifted underneath her, sending her tumbling to the ground.
I heard Rosaline scream in my head, heard Joclyn yell in panicked fear, but I couldn’t think. I was stuck in a cage with the whimpers and cries of my child, and I forgot what I was doing.
Suddenly, it was just another job.
It was just another body to claim.
Another beating heart to deliver to my master.
Heart thundering in eagerness, I burst from the shield that had become a prison, my hand raised in preparation for attack, turning to face the woman I had attacked so ruthlessly in one swift motion, the floor beneath her shifting as it swallowed her whole.
“Wyn!” Her voice was a scream of terror that ran through me with a trembling fear that brought a flood of everything right back to me.
No!
No body, no war, no blood.
The game.
It was just a game.
“No!” I yelled as the voice left, the frightening reality implanting itself within me. “No,” I said again, my magic withdrawing back into me in one swift pull.
The stones of the floor solidified themselves in an instant. Her scream faded into the mirror of my own heaving breath, our eyes meeting in a desperate look of fear and panic so heavy I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know what to say.
How was I going to get myself out of this one?
It was like I was stuck in a bad Michael Jackson music video.
“Wyn?” Her voice sounded tentative from where she stood. I didn’t blame her for her fear. “Are you okay?”
I glared at her, my jaw locked as the battle continued inside of me. I had attacked her, and she was asking me if I was okay.
Thankfully my little girl’s voice had taken a break. It made it easier to think. I wished the mass murdering side of me would be a little bit quieter. I didn’t want to kill this one.
“What do you mean?” I was defensive, too defensive. I cringed against the sound in my voice, but I knew I couldn’t take it back.
Calm down, Wyn, I told myself. You are starting to act like one of those deranged puppets parents make their kids watch on TV.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” she began, her voice shaking, “but I am pretty sure you were trying to kill me for a second … and you were crying.”
To anyone else, the combination might be seen as normal. In a way, it was for me—well, the killing people part. Strangely, the crying was more out of the ordinary. It was an odd reality when she was more alarmed by that than the “almost murder” I had “almost committed.”
“I’m fine.” My voice was a growl, so unlike the personality she knew from me—hell, unlike both my personalities. I knew she wouldn’t believe me.
She didn’t.
“Wyn,” she prompted, “you can tell me.”
Yeah right, not if I was going to save my daughter.
“Please, Wyn.” She twisted her hands around one another as she always did when she was getting uncomfortable.
I wanted to say she was reacting to me, that her demons where plaguing her, but not with the way she was looking at me, with that sympathy and understanding she always had. The combination was terrifying.